WWdN Not, More Razz Cash Profits, and NFL Football

Well I'm sad to report this morning that my web host experienced an outage all last night and this morning, so even though they're back online now, I won't have any screenshots for you from last night's poker action. Which is a shame btw, since I not only won another $250 playing 8-16 razz on full tilt, but I also played the WWdN Not tournament on pokerstars, and ended in 2nd place out of 15 entrants. I think I won about 2 cents for my second-place finish for the event, but of course as always it's all about the glory and not the cash, right? Uh huh. Congratulations to my oldtime nemesis xkm who outlasted me after probably half an hour of heads-up play. And outlasted is the right word for it, too, because I had a more than 2-to-1 chip lead from the beginning of heads-up play right through near the end, and in fact I was slowly increasing my chip lead during the course of the heads-up play, but in the end xkm managed to hang on until he flopped the only big monster either of us saw during heads-up, when he played a pair of 9s in the pocket and flopped trips. Unfortunately for me, I also made top pair decent kicker on that hand, which as we know is a monster in heads-up action, and long story short I ended up doubling xkm through and giving him a big lead in chips. The very next hand I found AJs, so I immediately pushed, to make it look like I was just tilting off the rest of my chips. It worked, xkm called and flipped KTo (he might have called with that regardless of my act, but I'll take some of the credit nonetheless), and xkm then proceeded to make not one but two pairs by the turn card to eliminate me from the contest. So congratulations to xkm -- well played no doubt -- and I'll take my second place finish in the WWdN Not and leave it at that. It's not like I haven't gotten lucky near the end to win most of the tournaments that I've won, and xkm played well enough to put himself in a position to be there for the luck at the end, and I can accept that.

As I mentioned, I also won big again at 8-16 razz cash on full tilt. I have got to say, I am really not finding the competition at 8-16 to be a whole lot better than what I used to face over at 1-2 and 2-4 on full tilt. In the end, if anything I'd rather play against the 8-16 crowd, because some of them are at least experienced enough, and the limits are high enough, that they might fold on 6th or 7th street when they know they're beat. I like that because it means that, on occasion and with the right cards showing and with the right betting patterns having been done through the hand, I can sometimes bluff when I make a boat on the river but have 3 decent low cards showing on the board, and get my opponents to fold. And you do that just one time at 8-16 razz, and that's probably a $100+ bluff you just ran there. At 1-2 or 2-4, they're calling that river. Period. It's like a lot of other poker games in that way.

More good news from last night is that the Hammer Girls slept through the night for the third straight day. The Hammer Wife and I barely know what to do with ourselves to tell you the truth. We're still in that place where every time one of the girls coughs briefly or rolls over and says something quiet in their sleep, we hear it on the monitor and instantly our eyes pop open, expecting the worst. But three straight nights of sleep is three straight nights, and I'll take that however I can get it.

OK, so especially since I didn't get any fun screenshots from last night, I thought I would chat a little about some NFL football before signing out for the weekend here. I already covered earlier in the week how I am in 7th place out of 12 players in the blogger fantasy league that KJ has set up. I still can't explain this after the miraculous draft I managed to pull off, especially for a 12-team league, but injury and surprise step-down performances this season from grizzled fantasy veterans are to blame for my subpar performances basically across the board.

Things are faring much better in my other two fantasy football leagues. In the league that I run every year, which includes my brother Aquaverse as well as jeciimd and TrophyHubby, and which I will freely admit is the only fantasy football league that I actually care about winning, here are the current standings:



In that leauge I am "StockLab", so I'm sitting pretty in second place at the halfway point of the season. I'm outscoring most of the other players in that league, and as things currently sit, I have a full 2 game lead on the playoff hunt (top 4 make the playoffs) with 6 games to play. In that league my boys Larry Johnson, Marvin Harrison, Marc Bulger and Antonio Gates are leading the way to victory week in and week out, and I'm hopeful that will continue heading into the next few games in a crucial part of the season. I win 2 or 3 more games in a row here, and I am in like Flynn to the playoffs. And in fantasy football playoffs, anything can and probably will happen.

In my other fantasy football league, where I also play as "StockLab" (long story on that name), my old college roommate is the commish. He is not as experienced as I am in running a fantasy league, so he tends to be a couple of years behind the curve as far as some of the improvements in the league's scoring, playoff schedule, etc., but he's growing into it and his managers generally get the job done. They do some trades, they talk some trash, so that league is slowly improving to be a pretty enjoyable one for me as well. Here are those standings:



So there I'm in a three-way tie for first place, but I'm only in 5th out of 10 teams in terms of total fantasy points scored, so I'm not really as strong in this league as I am in my own league as I described above, even though here I am tied for first place. But I still do have that very valuable 2-game lead on the playoff positions with just 6 weeks of fantasy remaining in the league, so that leaves me currently in good position to hold on for a spot in the winners' bracket. I'm playing the current first place guy this weekend though, and I'm projected to lose that matchup by a few key points, so anything can still happen over there before all is said and done on fantasy football 2006.

Lastly but not leastly, I thought now was a good time to do my first review of my NFL Pickem pool. If you recall, before the NFL season began I issued an open invitation to my readers here to anyone who wanted to join my NFL Pickem league, where we pick all the games straight-up every week, and assign confidence ratings to each depending on how sure we are that a particular game will be won by the team we are picking. First, let's take a look at the standings here at the halfway point of the NFL season:



So there you have it. My buddy from growing up KingSteelerEagleman is in the lead currently, but he has watched his leading margin shrink from significant, to just big, to decent and now it is down to a tie with A Bunch of No Name Scrubs, with some more bloggers applying pressure with scores that are just one good week behind the leaders as well. Now, I've played NFL Pickem for probably 7 or 8 straight years, and I can tell you, it ain't over yet. A lot of shizz can and will happen over the next few months as we run through the rest of the NFL season, and the second half of the year is where the just lucky or just so-so pickers tend to separate from the guys are going to rip shit up in the league this year and end up at the top of the list. I've won Pickem two of the last three years we've played this, so I expect to make my push in the second half, and I know some other players do as well. Remember as well that only 20 players were non-pussies enough to pony up the $10 buyin I suggested to make Pickem a bit more interesting this year. So a guy like my pussybuddy KingSteelerEagleman, even though he is currently atop the leaderboard, he was too scared to play for pay and as a result, he is not eligible for the big money prize at the end of the year. I continue to laugh at the thought that anyone who wasn't willing to make it interesting for ten lousy dollars could then be subjected to watching himself win the league, but get no money as a result. I hope that happens actually. The ragging on them would be nonstop. But we'll see what happens, there is a whole lot of football left to be played my friends, and although I'm currently in 19th place on the list, it's only 35 points out of first place. That kind of deficit can't be made up in one week in this kind of a game, but in one solid month of NFL picks I could easily have wormed my way back into the top 5. And anyone with striking distance of the top few spots is definitely in good position to make a run heading into the home stretch of the NFL season. So watch out bloggas!

OK that's it for me for now. Look for me this weekend at the razz cash tables on full tilt, as those have simply been far too profitable for me to stay away for too long. I will also try to continue playing the 25k guaranteed tourney at 10pm ET every night on full tilt, as I continue my vain quest to return to the final-table glory I once tasted there with my 5th place finish this past summer. And you can surely find me as well in one or more satellite tournaments to the FTOPS coming up in two weeks -- if you recall I've already won my seat to the Razz event in the FTOPS that occurs two weeks from today, where Cracknaces will be joining me and where I can hopefully get my revenge after he knocked me out of the final table in a PLO FTOPS satellite I ran earlier this week, but I also look to make a showing in satellite tournaments for the 6-max nlh tournament in the FTOPS, as well as the PLO event and even the stud hilo event which I believe goes off the same night as DADI XI is scheduled, which is also my birthday (so yes, that does mean I will be winning both tournaments that night). So I should definitely be around and online and on full tilt for the most part, so stop by and say hello if you're so inclined. Or, better yet, take a seat next to me at the 5-10 or 8-16 razz cash tables on full tilt and make a run at some serious cash profits. Oh and don't forget the latest Big Game that is on the slate for 9:30pm ET on Sunday night on full tilt, "Private" tournament tab. The first Big Game was a rousing success, and I expect more of the same this weekend at the second installment in this new tournament series brought to you by Miami Don, the guy with just about the best-sounding life of any of the regular blogger crew, if I don't say so myself. I have not registered yet for the Big Game, but assuming the Hammer Girls aren't up to their old tricks, I'm sure I'll be there. Gotta get cracking on some of those Tier II satellite tokens this weekend!